Three Images: What Principals Do in Curriculum Implementation

ABSTRACT

The Principal Teacher Interaction (PTI) Study is an analysis of what principals do on a day-to-day basis to bring about curriculum implementation and school improvement. For one year, the study documented the interventions of principals and others facilitating implementation of new curriculum programs in nine elementary schools across the United States. The study asked, (1) What do principals do as change facilitators? and (2) What is the relationship between change facilitating style and implementation success?

Two analytical frameworks, The Taxonomy of Interventions and the Anatomy of Interventions, were used to identify and analyze interventions, study patterns of change facilitation, and refine descriptions of three styles of facilitation: the responder, manager, and initiator styles. Data on teacher's concerns, their use of the new curricula, and the operational forms the new programs assumed in the classroom were used to measure implementation success. The study found that effectiveness in facilitating change increases from responder to manager to initiator styles. The correlation between style and implementation success was 0.74, significant to the 0.01 level.

Another major finding was discovery of the second change facilitator (CF) who assists in the change process. The second CF appears to play a complementary role to that of the principal. The configuration of a change facilitator team is a key to understanding the change process and has direct implications for training and future research on school improvement efforts.